Martina O’Connor is a multidisciplinary artist and writer based on Ireland’s west coast. Of German descent and holding Dutch nationality, she has lived and worked across Europe and Latin America. Her creative practice is grounded in a diverse background spanning social sciences, multimedia, and health sciences. She has worked as a researcher in Central America and lectured among others in pathology, anatomy, physiology, and cross-cultural communication.
Her approach is shaped by fluency in multiple languages and a sustained interest in how body, identity, and perception intersect. O’Connor’s work frequently explores relationships between land, spatial awareness, and the thresholds between physical and psychological experience. She holds a BA in Contemporary Art Practices (with distinction) and is currently participating in the Turps Banana Correspondence Mentorship. Her visual and written work has been exhibited and published in Ireland and internationally.
Artist Statement
My practice bridges personal and scientific inquiry through painting, drawing, installation, video, and text—creating atmospheres where transformation, fragmentation, and connection converge. Navigating multiple identities, geographical, corporeal, queer, the boundaries I cross feel both intimate and political. Working with multimedia and text-based forms, I construct tactile worlds of sensation, silence, and story.
Living with a rare autoimmune condition, synaesthesia, and neurodivergence, I view these as creative strengths, gateways to enhanced perception and imaginative problem-solving. My process externalises inner states: using form, colour, gesture, and the body to render the invisible visible.
At the heart of my work is a fascination with positionality: how perspective shifts through cultural, sensory, and embodied contexts. I aim to make art that provokes feeling, thought, and dialogue, because I believe art is both a catalyst and a bridge between disciplines, experiences, and individuals.
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